"I have been but little in," said Ninian hastily...

Here's a song for my all my England-supporting friends...



There are bad times just around the corner,
There are dark clouds hurtling through the sky
And it's no good whining
About a silver lining
For we know from experience that they won't roll by,
With a scowl and a frown
We'll keep our peckers down
And prepare for depression and doom and dread,
We're going to unpack our troubles from our old kit bag
And wait until we drop down dead.

According to this, on a scale of English to Welsh, I'm English ( see what else it says about me )

I'm a huge fan of the website Undiscovered Scotland. I've always thought it was a shame there wasn't a companion site to cover that wee country that lies south of the border (the two, I suppose I should say, so I don't get any angry emails from Wales).

It isn't quite the same, but Pictures of England comes close. It's quite nice, and fairly informative.

"Great Tales From English History" by Robert Lacey.

soccer_fox borrowed this from [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] and read it very quickly, so I tagged on and borrowed it too. It's a collection of short pieces describing events from English history from eras from prehistory the end of the 14th century. It starts with a description of what is known of Cheddar Man (who lived around 7150 BC) to the Great Rising of 1381 (known, as the author points out, rather erroneously as the Peasants' Revolt). It *is*, as advertised, *English* history. Other inhabitants of Britain appear occasionally as supporting characters, but the English are the central feature.

The 43 chapters are short and very readable. Each usually focuses on a person, though a few are more focused on events. The annotated bibliography provides excellent listings of general histories, plus a number of primary and secondary sources and recommended further reading for each chapter.

The style is chatty and easygoing. The author gently explodes some of the popular myths commonly passed about, while explaining how many of them came about or how and why they survived as indicators of what later generations *wanted* to believe about the past.

There's a second volume, released in 2005, subtitled "Chaucer to the Glorious Revolution"; if it's as entertaining and well written as this one, it's also worth reading!

This almost merits being posted to northwatfordgap

from MLSnet.com

"And while the [US top division, Major League Soccer (MLS),] continues to build soccer-specific stadiums, it's unlikely MLS will follow the [English Premier League's] model and have all-grass fields.

"In the United States some of the weather issues are a bit different," [MLS Dputy Commissioner Ivan] Gazidis said. "In an ideal world, we would all live in England where it always rains and there are lovely grass fields. But we don't live in that world."

Erm, some of us would prefer to live in Scotland, thank you! :-)